Denmark

Cecilie Skov Johansen

Cecilie Skov Johansen | Photo: Körber-Stiftung

"The textile city of Alex Hansen in the 20th century" (2016)

In October 2016, twenty-four award winners from EUSTORY competitions met at a History Camp in Georgia. For this occasion they prepared posters about their projects and findings which were displayed in the National History Museum in Tbilisi.

My competition entry was about the effects of the industrial revolution in the textile production of my hometown in the middle of the 20th century. I wanted to create a personal view on local history, so I chose to focus on a local businessman. To illustrate my research and results I designed an interactive scrapbook.

How did you decide on your topic?One day, a peculiar building caught my eye as I was stuck at a red light. Old buildings are not very common in my relatively young city so it sparked my interest. I found out that it was an old factory, and suddenly I was on the track of an industrial adventure in the middle of nowhere. A story, I was way too curious to leave undiscovered.

How did you react when you came upon surprising points during your research?I think the most surprising discovery I made was how big an influence something that happened 60 years ago has had on the local mentality. My city really has a “can-do”-spirit but I never really thought of why. Turns out, a lot of it can be traced back to the confidence the citizens earned when a business miracle happened in the aftermath of the Second World War. Anything is possible through smart choices and hard work, words that almost became the motto of my hometown.